I've been flying with BATC for a while now and generally love it but lately I have been having a consistent problem. BATC seems to lose track of where I am. I'll be 200 nm from destination and BATC will start vectoring me for the approach - then I'll get something like "you are 185.5 miles from destination - report airport in sight - problem is they have vectored me away from the airport. Very frustrating! Also quite often they will miss my TOD and when I am 20 miles from airport at FL41 I get cleared to land.

Considering what they do I am overall very pleased. Just wondering if others have run into similar things. I posted on their Discord but have yet to get any response.

2 minutes ago, vgbaron said:

I'll get something like "you are 185.5 miles from destination - report airport in sight - problem is they have vectored me away from the airport.

This is exactly my experience. I can rely on BATC vectoring or terrain clearance. It becomes more like background ATC chatter.

I also often get initial runway assignment by simbrief changed and request to change get denied . I would expect to know active runway before programming FMC, but BATC asign runway only during taxi request.

I have the same issue… but with an A340 BATC vectors me too late !

It is not easy to decelerate with a heavy aircraft…

6 minutes ago, sd_flyer said:

I would expect to know active runway before programming FMC, but BATC asign runway only during taxi request.

The active runway is marked when you ask for clearance. It should or could also be part of the ATIS

There's a long thread on it somewhere. Basically, when BATC works, it is great. Other times, not so much. Descents will almost always be late. I almost always start my descent early. When it comes to approaches, if they give me instructions that make sense, I follow them. Anything odd, I just ignore them and fly an approach. They seem to love long, visual approaches. I always have an IFR approach (if there is one) handy. Basically, if a vector is taking you away from a reasonable approach, just ignore it.

I have seen similar odd behavior with BATC, especially around descent planning and late vectors. When it works, it can be very impressive, but for IFR I still care more about predictable vectoring and separation than the voice side. That is basically why I have been using FSHud more for offline IFR lately. It is less flashy in some areas, but I find the approach handling and traffic flow easier to trust.

For BATC specifically I would probably do what kerosene31 said: keep the planned approach ready and treat the ATC instructions as advisory if they start sending you away from anything sensible.

Vectoring during the approach phase is mostly garbage.

BATC provides some background ATC chatter, and it can now inject real live traffic. The voices are decent. That's about it.

BATC sucks (for now). Maybe it'll be good someday. But yeah, like Ricardo said above, it's just a traffic injector and background noise for me.

Now, if they would actually improve the app without adding regressions or pulling regressions from months-old builds, that would be neat.

I've stopped using it.

Too may issues on flights. I want to concentrate on the flying, not sorting this programme out

2 hours ago, Ricardo41 said:

Vectoring during the approach phase is mostly garbage.

BATC provides some background ATC chatter, and it can now inject real live traffic. The voices are decent. That's about it.

Same here, I'm afraid. It's always the descent/approach phase that lets it down. However - I still really like the addon and hope it keeps improving.

I found that the best way to utilize BATC is to make sure that you are flying into Class B airports with DPs & STARS. Follow your own path until you intercept the FAF and then manually contact tower. It's actually very good, especially if you are flying in the USA.

I did a KTPA to MMUN and also loved how the local accents changed.

For me it has been a game chager. I now look forward to my daily IFR flights.

Today's flight, KDCA-KPIT.

18 minutes ago, CFIJose said:

I found that the best way to utilize BATC is to make sure that you are flying into Class B airports with DPs & STARS. Follow your own path until you intercept the FAF and then manually contact tower. It's actually very good, especially if you are flying in the USA.

Under these constraints the default ATC works fairly well, so the only thing you're really gaining from BATC are the more realistic voices and chatter.

35 minutes ago, Funky D said:

Under these constraints the default ATC works fairly well, so the only thing you're really gaining from BATC are the more realistic voices and chatter.

I would never compare default v2024 ATC to BATC. Default ATC & AI control are an absolute disgrace to the rest of v2024. IMO is the one area that has been neglected for years by ASOBO and that's becuase they can't fix it.

BATC is a marvel creation and even though is not perfect yet, it's better than everything else I've tried, and I've tried the prominent atc add-ons.

So NO, I can't agree!

It's not just the voices, it's AI contrrol, ATC chatter throughout the flight, the variety of accents, the predictable handoffs with the correct FP, and just the fact that a flight can be completed successfully.

Comparing BATC or SayI or FsHud to default ATC is just nonsense.

And I am being extremely polite

I loathe the default ATC as much as everyone else, but I just find it a bit sad that even the add-on products have the same issues as the default ATC. Basically the only time the default ATC is somewhat reliable is when flying into larger airports. Maybe its a core sim issue in the end, but from what I've read of other sims they have similar issues.

I'm not knocking BATC, but as someone who is stuck with the default ATC in career mode, it IS serviceable for the most part when flying into large airports, and it gets tripped up in the same way I've read other add-on products get tripped up.